Mobile Operators May Gain Additional Benefits

Mobile operators may receive additional incentives for the development of communications next year, the representative of the Ministry for the development of information and communication technologies in Uzbekistan told a correspondent of Uzbekistan Today.

According to him, an expert group is working on a specific proposal, which will soon be considered by the government. The Ministry expects that the new incentives should encourage operators to develop and improve the quality of communication in areas of the country.

"From an economic point of view, operators are not interested in the installation of high-speed equipment in settlements due to the fact that the costs for companies in such cases will exceed revenues. In large cities, they are interested since the population is large and demand is high," the representative said.

"But that does not mean that people who live in remote areas should not receive high-quality and high-speed Internet connection. From this perspective, we examined the experience of different countries and concluded that operators need additional benefits to encourage them to work actively in remote parts of the country," he added.

Today the market of cellular communication of Uzbekistan consists of five operators: two Russian companies - Beeline and UMS (subsidiary of MTS), the Swedish-Finnish Teliasonera under the brand name Ucell, national operator Uzmobile and Uzbek Company Perfectum Mobile.